[Elecraft] ROHS COMPLIANT?

[Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ, Elecraft]

To be honest, RoHS only directly impacts manufacturers who ship into 
Europe. Primarily it changes the type of solder that the leads of 
components are tinned with in our kits from lead based solders to 
non-lead based varieties.

Either type of part can still be easily soldered with regular lead based 
solder. It in no way impacts individual buyers. There is even a specific 
exemption in the European RoHS regulations for Eu buyers who import 
items for their own home construction. Using regular lead based solder 
thus is not an issue for individual builders in Eu or the U.S.

We -strongly- recommend continuing to use regular lead based solder to 
build our kits. Kester 44, and other 63/37, 60/40 lead/tin mix solders 
are not going away in the US or in Eu and work much better for soldering 
both RoHS and non-RoHS tinned parts. Removal of non-lead solder is 
difficult at best for most builders, potentially damaging PC boards and 
components, and thats why our warranty prohibits its usage. Lead free 
solder is really designed for use in mass production lines.

We are converting to RoHS parts for several reasons:

1. Our assembled products, like the T1-A, absolutely must be RoHS 
compliant for import into EC countries.
2. While it appears kits are exempted for individual import by the EC 
regulations (we do not have an office in Europe) we don't want to take 
the chance that a customs official in some country will interpret the 
rules differently. :-)
3. Ultimately all parts are going this way, since suppliers do not want 
to supply two types of each part. We're ahead of the game this way.
4. California has also announced that it plans to follow Europe in this 
area sometime in 2007. (But they are vague on this at this time.)
5. We also can't afford to build two types of kits in the long run.

73, Eric

P.S. I frequently do not read the reflector on a daily basis, and I 
receive a lot of unsolicited emails. As a result can not always reply 
quickly to all posts or direct emails.
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> On 8/24/06, wt5y1976 at peoplepc.com <wt5y1976 at peoplepc.com> wrote:
>> Sorry Ive been gone for a while, what exactly is ROHS and how does it 
>> affect me?  Is it just the type of solder and what the compenents 
>> themselves are made out of?  And do I have to go out and buy a 
>> special soldering iron now?
>>
>> WT5Y out of the loop for the last year and a half
>